Driver high on cocaine killed cyclist with kids in car while searching for song on phone

Drug-taking driver Matthew Bates killed a cyclist in Leicestershire by ramming him with his Audi, while searching for a song on his phone.

Bates had been using cocaine before he drove his two young children - aged five and eight - to football practice. During that journey he logged onto a music app and hit cyclist Colin Banks, 64. The collision happened on the B4114 Coventry Road near Sharnford on Sunday, January 30, 2022. Bates' Audi Q5 ended up on its side in a ditch.

Bates initially blamed Mr Banks for the collision, who was a recently-retired university lab assistant and popular Scout leader.

He claimed the pensioner's bike hit the kerb then swerved in front of him, leaving him unable to avoid the bike.However, Leicester Crown Court heard how Bates' eight-year-old son, who was taken to an ambulance after the crash, said his dad was at fault. He told a paramedic: "Daddy was trying to get a song on that he liked. He didn't see a bike and we hit it."

Collision investigators found he had started using a music app about 45 seconds before the collision.

They also said the bike was correctly positioned in the road and Bates would have been able to see Mr Banks from more than 200 metres away on the straight road.

Mr Banks suffered a severe head injury and was pronounced dead at hospital.

Bates was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, which he denied, insisting that his phone was either in his son's hands or in the car's central console when the crash happened.He later changed his story and pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of causing death by careless driving while over the drug-driving limit.

The court heard Bates's blood contained just over three times the legal limit for a by-product of cocaine use.

Annalisa Banks, Colin's sister-in-law, read out a statement to the court. She said: "Colin's untimely and utterly avoidable death has devastated his family and his friends. Words cannot describe the horror we felt on hearing about the brutal nature of his passing."She said Colin had "helped shape the lives of hundreds of young people" in his Scouts role. She added: "We have been robbed of a loving, gentle and thoughtful soul. There's not a day we don't think about him."Leicester Crown Court also heard that following his arrest, Bates, 37, of Buckinghams Way, Sharnford, separated from his wife. His barrister, Jonathan Dunne, said his client had his own tiling business and was a devoted father.He said: "He's taken his eyes off the road, the tyres have gone onto the kerb and in consequence has not been looking where he should have been looking."He said Bates had left the family home and moved back in with his mother after the break-up but still had regular contact with his children, now aged 10 and seven.He said: "He's taken his eyes off the road, the tyres have gone onto the kerb and in consequence has not been looking where he should have been looking."

At sentencing Judge Timothy Spencer KC said Bates had clearly taken cocaine some time before getting behind the wheel and should never have been driving his children in the first place. He jailed Bates for three years and nine months in prison, of which he will serve at least half behind bars.Bates will be disqualified from driving for five years after his release from prison. The court said he will also have to take an extended re-test before he can drive again.

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